"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Human Rights Watch, World Report 2013: Cuba

"Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent."- Human Rights Watch, World Report 2013

Cuba

Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses
virtually all forms of political dissent. In 2012, the government of
Raúl Castro continued to enforce political conformity using short-term
detentions, beatings, public acts of repudiation, travel restrictions,
and forced exile.

Although in 2010 and 2011 the Cuban government
released dozens of political prisoners on the condition that they accept
exile in exchange for their freedom, the government continues to
sentence dissidents to one to four-year prison terms in closed, summary
trials, and holds others for extended periods without charge. It has
also relied increasingly upon arbitrary arrests and short-term
detentions to restrict the basic rights of its critics, including the
right to assemble and move freely.

While reforms passed in
October 2012 eliminate the need for Cubans to obtain an exit visa to
leave the island, they contain vague, broad provisions which could be
used by authorities to continue to deny the right to travel to people
who are critical of the government.

Political Prisoners

Cubans
who dare to criticize the government are subject to criminal
prosecution. They do not benefit from due process guarantees, such as
the right to fair and public hearings by a competent and impartial
tribunal. In practice, courts are “subordinated” to the executive and
legislative branches, thus denying meaningful judicial independence.
Political prisoners are routinely denied parole after completing the
minimum required sentence as punishment for refusing to participate in
ideological activities such as “reeducation” classes.

The death
of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo in 2010 after his 85-day
hunger strike, and the subsequent hunger strike by dissident Guillermo
Fariñas, pressured the government to release the political prisoners
from the “group of 75” (75 dissidents who were sentenced to long prison
terms in a 2003 crackdown). Yet most were forced to choose between
ongoing prison sentences and forced exile, and dozens of other
dissidents have been forced abroad to avoid imprisonment.

Dozens
of political prisoners remain in Cuban prisons, according to human
rights groups on the island. These groups estimate there are more
political prisoners whose cases they cannot document because the
government does not allow independent national or international human
rights groups to access its prisons.

Rogelio Tavío López—a member
the Unión Patriótica de Cuba dissident group—was detained in March 2012
in Guantanamo province after organizing a protest to demand the release
of political prisoners. He has since been held in detention without
being brought before a judge or granted access to a lawyer.

Arbitrary Detentions and Short-Term Imprisonment

In
addition to criminal prosecutions, the Cuban government has
increasingly relied on arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate
individuals who exercise their fundamental rights. The Cuban Commission
for Human Rights and National Reconciliation—an independent human rights
group that the government views as illegal—received reports of 2,074
arbitrary detentions by state agents in 2010, 4,123 in 2011, and 5,105
from January to September 2012.

The detentions are often used
preemptively to prevent individuals from participating in events viewed
as critical of the government, such as peaceful marches or meetings to
discuss politics. Many dissidents are subjected to beatings and threats
as they are detained, even though they do not try to resist.

Security officers virtually never present arrest orders to
justify the detentions and threaten detainees with criminal sentences if
they continue to participate in “counterrevolutionary” activities.
Victims of such arrests are held incommunicado for several hours to
several days, often at police stations. In some cases, they are given an
official warning, which prosecutors may later use in criminal trials to
show a pattern of delinquent behavior. Dissidents said these warnings
are aimed at discouraging them from participating in future activities
seen as critical of the government.

In July, at least 40 people
were arbitrarily detained in Havana at the funeral of dissident Oswaldo
Payá, who died in a car accident. Police officers broke up the
non-violent procession and beat participants. The detainees were taken
to aprison encampment where they were held incommunicado for 30 hours
before being released without charge.

Freedom of Expression

The
government controls all media outlets in Cuba and tightly restricts
access to outside information, which severely limits the right to
freedom of expression. Only a tiny fraction of Cubans have the chance to
read independently published articles and blogs because of the high
cost of and limited access to the internet.

A small number of
independent journalists and bloggers manage to write articles for
foreign websites or independent blogs, yet those who use these outlets
to criticize the government are subjected to public smear campaigns,
arbitrary arrests, and abuse by security agents. The authorities often
confiscate their cameras, recorders, and other equipment. According to
the independent journalists’ group Hablemos Press, authorities
arbitrarily detained 19 journalists in September 2012, including Calixto
Ramón Martínez Arias, who remained in prison without charge at this
writing.

The Cuban government uses selective allocations of press
credentials and visas, which are required by foreign journalists to
report from the island, to control coverage of the island and punish
media outlets seen as overly critical of the regime. For example, in
anticipation of the March 2012 visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Cuba, the
government denied visas to journalists from El Pais and El Nuevo Herald, newspapers whose reporting it has criticized as biased.

Human Rights Defenders

The
Cuban government refuses to recognize human rights monitoring as a
legitimate activity and denies legal status to local human rights
groups. Meanwhile, government authorities harass, assault, and imprison
human rights defenders who attempt to document abuses. In the weeks
leading up to and during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Cuba, authorities
detained, beat, and threatened scores of human rights defenders.

Travel Restrictions and Family Separation

In
2012 the Cuban government prevented the country's citizens from leaving
or returning to Cuba without first obtaining official permission, which
was often denied to those who had criticized the government. For
example, acclaimed blogger Yoani Sánchez, who has been critical of the
government, has been denied the right to leave the island at least 19
times since 2008, including in February 2012 after the Brazilian
government granted her a visa to attend a documentary screening.

Reforms
to travel regulations that went into effect in January 2013 eliminate
the need for an exit visa to leave the island, which had previously been
used to deny the right to travel to people critical of the government
and their families. However, the reform establishes that the government
may restrict the right to travel on the vague grounds of “defense and
national security” or “other reasons of public interest,” which could
allow authorities to continue to deny people who express dissent the
ability to leave Cuba.

The government restricts the movement of
citizens within Cuba by enforcing a 1997 law known as Decree 217.
Designed to limit migration to Havana, the decree requires Cubans to
obtain government permission before moving to the country's capital. It
is often used to prevent dissidents traveling to Havana to attend
meetings and to harass dissidents from other parts of Cuba who live in
the capital.

Prison Conditions

Prisons are overcrowded,
unhygienic, and unhealthy, leading to extensive malnutrition and
illness. More than 57,000 Cubans are in prisons or work camps, according
to a May 2012 article in an official government newspaper. Prisoners
who criticize the government, or engage in hunger strikes and other
forms of protest are often subjected to extended solitary confinement,
beatings, restrictions on family visits, and denial of medical care.
Prisoners have no effective complaint mechanism to seek redress, giving
prison authorities total impunity.

In January 2012, Wilman Villar
Mendoza, 31, died after a 50-day hunger strike in prison, which he
initiated to protest his unjust trial and inhumane prison conditions. He
had been detained in November 2011 after participating in a peaceful
demonstration, and was sentenced to four years in prison for “contempt”
in a summary trial in which he had no lawyer. After beginning his hunger
strike, he was stripped naked and placed in solitary confinement in a
cold cell. He was transferred to a hospital only days before he died.

Key International Actors

The
United States’ economic embargo on Cuba, in place for more than half a
century, continues to impose indiscriminate hardship on the Cuban
people, and has done nothing to improve human rights in Cuba. At the
United Nations General Assembly in November, 188 of the 192 member
countries voted for a resolution condemning the US embargo.

In
2009, President Barack Obama enacted reforms to eliminate limits on
travel and remittances by Cuban Americans to Cuba, which had been put in
place during the administration of President George W. Bush. In 2011,
Obama used his executive powers to ease “people-to-people” travel
restrictions, allowing religious, educational, and cultural groups from
the US to travel to Cuba. However, in May 2012 the Obama administration
established additional requirements to obtain “people to people”
licenses, which has reduced the frequency of such trips.

The
European Union continues to retain its "Common Position" on Cuba,
adopted in 1996, which conditions full economic cooperation with Cuba on
the country's transition to a pluralist democracy and respect for human
rights.

In June, the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) issued a
report on Cuba in which it expressed concern about reports of inhumane
prison conditions and the use of ambiguous preventive detention measures
such as “social dangerousness,” among other issues for which it said
the Cuban government failed to provide key information.